


ever upward

by MasterFinland



Category: InuYasha - A Feudal Fairy Tale
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Nightmares, No Romance, No Slash, Parent-Child Relationship, Parental Sesshoumaru, Unconventional Families
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-11
Updated: 2019-05-11
Packaged: 2020-02-29 21:30:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18786598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MasterFinland/pseuds/MasterFinland
Summary: Her voice catches on a hiccup, his name rasped out in a weak flex of her raw vocal cords, scratchy from her swallowed sobs and lack of use. Sesshoumaru feels something akin to a clench in his chest at the sound.How odd.





	ever upward

Sesshoumaru hears Rin wake up before she actually does.

 

He knows she’s having another nightmare; he could hear it in the way her heartbeat had picked up erratically and her breathing had quickened a few short minutes before. She doesn’t quite smell awake just yet, still has the scent of someone who is dead to the world. She rolls over in the grass, and had Sesshoumaru been getting enough sleep, had he really been trying, he would have been able to hear each blade of grass as it was crushed and the dirt that was picked up like dust from beneath it.

 

She gasps herself awake, jolting in such a way that it would look like a twitch to someone who wasn’t paying close enough attention, someone without the senses of a high-ranking demon like himself. She doesn’t shoot up, doesn’t make a lot of noise, but instead simply curls herself into something resembling a ball, wild eyes straining to see in the dark and determine her location as her adrenaline dies back down and she becomes more aware of her surroundings. He can tell the exact second she realizes where she is, that she’s safe with him in a forest clearing, embers still crackling in the fire pit that had been doused hours ago, because he can hear the sound her new kimono makes as her shoulders slump back down from being hiked to her ears in panic.

 

He catches a sob just as it comes from her throat, and his ears twitch. He shifts forward just enough to rise, hand bent somewhat awkwardly against his knee as he uses it for leverage to stand. His right knee pops, and he frowns, knowing he needs to see a healer, because the joint had never quite healed after his brother had slashed it. He moves slowly to her, ignoring the budding irritation brought on by thinking of Inuyasha. He’s practically gliding, completely inaudible to anything and everything except the wind rustling his robes.

 

“Rin.”

 

She chokes on a sniffle, and Sesshoumaru has to try remarkably hard not to wrinkle his nose at the sound, even if she can’t really see him before her. Her eyes haven’t adjusted to the night yet, still in the process of dilating enough for her pitiful human eyesight to actually work. Sesshourmaru can see her perfectly, if not in slightly duller shades of color, her silhouette tinted a warm orange from the smoldering wood a few steps behind him. 

 

“S-Sessh-houmaru-sama?” Her voice catches on a hiccup, his name rasped out in a weak flex of her raw vocal cords, scratchy from her swallowed sobs and lack of use. Sesshoumaru feels something akin to a clench in his chest at the sound.

 

How odd.

 

The daiyoukai furrows his brows and crouches down before her, fingers splayed against the ground to keep his balance more easily. Getting dirt beneath his nails doesn’t seem to matter when it comes to her.

 

“Rin.” He says again, just to reassure her of the fact that he really is standing before her. He knows what she needs often before she does, in times like this.

 

Rin’s near-silent sobs don’t start back up immediately, but they don’t take more than a few seconds to begin again, worse than before, once Sesshoumaru sits and crosses his legs. She rises onto her knees, shaking with the force of her cries, chest heaving. She crawls into his lap, not even bothering to ask, and settles herself there, holding tightly to his decorative obi as she wails, still so, so silent - (still so afraid of being  _ too much _ ) - into the thin cloth over his left shoulder. He curls his arm around her tiny body, beneath her legs, tugs the hem of her skirts down to cover her dirty feet, which must be freezing - he makes a mental note, somewhere in the back of his mind, to get her some shoes and a cloak, because winter is coming early this year - and lets her sob, cry, wail, smear snot into the self-cleaning white of his underclothes, releasing emotions she’s too afraid to admit exist any time other than in the dark, silent, loneliness of the night.

 

She quiets after a few minutes, breathing slow and deep against his neck. Her body, worn and weary from emotion, goes heavy against him, and she yawns largely, unconsciously trying to hide the action in his shoulder. She’s blinking drooping eyelids that just can’t seem to stay open - crying takes so much out of humans; Sesshoumaru wonders how it’s possible for them to do it so often without dehydrating or collapsing and falling sick from exhaustion - but it’s clear she’s trying to stay awake with everything she has left in her. Sesshoumaru blows out a soft huff of laughter, barely even audible to his own ears.

 

Children are amusing.

 

He rises with her tucked against his chest, and she’s too tired to question or fight the movement, he knows. He places himself gracefully right down into the spot she’d been sleeping, rests back against the solid trunk behind him, and tugs his mokomoko over to him to drape it over her body to protect her against the chill of the evening and what would soon be early morning.

 

Rin is asleep within moments, curled, trustingly, into him. 

 

That ache in his chest is gone, replaced with something that feels almost uncomfortably hot and liquidy in his belly. Sesshoumaru allows his own eyes to drift shut and sleep to overtake him for the first time in a week.

**Author's Note:**

> more parental sesshoumaru babes


End file.
